Newsletter No.23 Spring 2017

T here is such a lot to look forward to with the Museum opening at the beginning of May. Helen has put together a very interesting and varied programme of talks, exhibitions and One of the miniature other events so please check them out on the works of art which will back page of this Newsletter and keep an eye be auctioned on May 17th - a local on the local press and the posters at the landscape by Carolyn Museum for changes and additions to the Stephenson programme - everything is also listed on the Museum website of course if you have internet access. The season begins with the AGM on Wednesday 17th May and as usual the official part of the evening will be very short, but followed by a new venture, an auction of art, mostly with local connections, which promises Did our albino mole have any offspring? Will we ever find out more to be great fun. The items to be auctioned will about the little boy who died of diphtheria, whose miniature hob- be on display from 12th May and for those nailed boots were left in a bag outside the Museum after his mother unable to attend on the evening, sealed bids died? Our ‘ferret feeding trough’ seems to have been recycled from a may be left in advance at the Museum. fine piece of stone carving, but for what function was it originally Janet Bishop, made? The list is endless. Clearly the Museum is spot on- Chair of the Friends of trend. We hope you will come in to see what new things we have acquired over the winter to stir your own curiosity. A sample piece from While we have plenty of our own curiosities we also help others with Anne Hewitt’s ‘Land and Thread’ theirs. A gentleman telephoned to ask about a fine silver claret jug exhibition in the upper that he had acquired, and whether we knew anything about some gallery, developing weird place called … ‘Old Gang’, the name which is engraved on the ideas connected with body of the jug. Surely this is not made from legendary Swaledale the Swaledale silver? Do we have any more details of the Bartholomew Blenkiron landscape who claimed for the repair of his house which was burnt in the great Marrick fire of 1737? Can we help with any information on a beehive oven found in a house up the dale? Of course we can - as we A message from the Curator are privileged to be part of a large network of local expertise, where We are delighted to be entering our 2017 season. specialists welcome a challenge. Over the winter we have been reading lots of We hope that you will be spurred to come along to some of this year's literature that suggests that the new buzz in the Friends of the Museum lectures, to satisfy your own desire to learn world of education and museums is ‘curiosity’. something new. If they are as popular as last year we recommend This is defined as both ‘a strong desire to know or that you book early to guarantee a place. We are particularly grateful learn something’ and ‘an unusual or interesting to Richard Lamb who is not only giving a talk on local lead smelting object or fact’. Now we have plenty of the latter in mills, but also leading a tour of the Marrick site, thanks to the the Swaledale Museum, from our ever changing kindness of the landowner. Come along to find out more about the collection of mysterious objects to individual Richmond to railway. I wonder how different the history of artefacts that have their own stories to tell. Swaledale might have been if it had actually been built?

The Swaledale Museum is open for the 2017 season fr om 5th May to 30th September, 10am to 5pm daily. Groups are warmly welcome at other times by appointment. We are very much looking forward to installing Anne Hewitt’s work in our upstairs gallery for this year's special exhibition, ‘Land and Thread’. Some more There are some stunning weaves, yarns and knits that develop ideas of the connected with the Swaledale landscape (which are for sale). They will miniatures be presented with contextual material that follows their evolution from which will be inspiration to finished piece. Don’t forget to visit our little shop on offer in downstairs which is filled with curiosities for you to buy, thanks to so the Fine Art many generous donors who have helped to stock it with so many Auction on 17th May. intriguing and unusual things. Each purchase helps the Swaledale Museum to keep open and operating.

We look forward to giving you a warm welcome, and as ever thank you for all your support by joining the Friends of the Museum. Helen Bainbridge, Curator

This ‘ferret feeding trough’ (left) which Helen mentions above has been donated from - but what was it originally? It’s a very nice piece of carved stone with letters and designs all the way round and a handy hollow in the top which was obviously not originally designed for feeding small animals. We have no idea what it is but we do now know where there’s another one! Thanks to Richard Hunt, our September speaker, we have a photograph (right) of a very similar one from just down the road at St Edmund’s church in Marske.

Apparently two of these objects came from the chancel of the church when the wooden floor was replaced with a stone one. We’re not certain what their relation to the floor was (if any). The Marske one is in rather better condition (probably due to not having been in prolonged contact with ferrets) and has the letters MF carved on one side, a decorative motif on a second, the date 1690 on a third, and TF on the fourth. Any suggestions as to their original purpose would be welcomed!

Thanking Good Friends Mystery Object This year started very sadly, with the loss of some great friends of the Museum. Katie Blyth (1954-2017) was a Sadly no-one has so far identified staunch supporter of the Museum from the moment of her the mystery gardening tool (right) arrival in Reeth, bringing a lifelong love of Swaledale with from the Autumn issue so we’ve her. We managed to persuade her to join the Friends of the been unable to help the owner. Museum Committee to which she added her special brand The next one (below) is probably a of enthusiasm, energy and initiative, as well as her little easier. The handle is metal, trademark flapjack, to our meetings. Always generous with the rollers are wooden and the her time, ideas and infectious self-deprecating humour she whole thing is about 8 inches long. came with an aura of happiness that was uplifting. All negatives were met with positives, and we will try and Katie Blyth hold close her innate philosophy of life. We will miss her immensely. Richard Beal (1955-2017) nobly audited the Friends of the Museum accounts every year, a task that is essential, but very much behind the scenes, and very typical of his support for local ventures. Two very large holes are left in our lives, as we recognise how important they were to us.

Support for the Museum comes not only from within the dales, but also from people living beyond. Sister Cecilia Goodman (1949-2017) from York delighted us with making special cards to sell in the Museum shop, using beautiful photographs of the dale, creating special cards and a Museum logo, as well as packaging them. Such thought, generosity and practical initiative was typical of Cecilia’s character, we will miss her and the principles she so firmly stood for. Don’t forget to keep an eye open in the local press for the date of our Grand Old Fashioned Our Museum year has been regularly marked since our arrival by visits from Bill Tea Party in Reeth Community Orchard and for Henderson (1929-2017) of Edinburgh, who with his wife (daughter of the other additions or amendments to the programme Wagstaffs who ran the local chert quarries) contributed so much to our love and which may occur as the season progresses. If knowledge of the dales. Every visit brought fresh thoughts and information, you don’t already receive our regular email given with characteristic modesty and wit. It was a pleasure to sit, chat and share updates, let us know your email address and Bill’s love of the area. Our greatest consolation is that his daughter Ann we’ll add you to the circulation list. You can continues this connection with us and Swaledale. also keep up with the latest news via our Helen Bainbridge Facebook page.

2 A Look at Health and Sickness in Upper Swaledale and Arkengarthdale

In a recent research project Jocelyn Campbell has been investigating ‘Health and Sickness in Upper Swaledale and Arkengarthdale’ and we are delighted to have a hard copy of the full draft of her report. Here we publish an extract. If you would like to read more, just book in to our archive in the Museum:

It is only with the new Poor Law rules of 1834 that we have written records of medical provision for the upper dales relating to the workhouses. Medical Officers, appointed by the Union Guardian, were answerable to the Poor Law Commission in London who demanded regular reports and sent inspectors. By this time advances in knowledge of the causes of disease were beginning to be understood, although the sources of some diseases were still a mystery. Reeth Union opened a workhouse which could accommodate sixty inmates. They appointed a Master and Matron, and crucially a Medical Officer to oversee the health in the workhouse and district.

The Poor Law Commission scrutinised every aspect of the work done. They expected regular reports on finances, health and diet. They appear to have found the independent men rather difficult to work with and complained about ignored reports, delayed information and the lack of answers to their questions. A draft letter from the Secretary of the Poor Law Commission in London, to Ottiwell Tomlin, Clerk of Reeth Guardians, on the subject of the Lunatic Return, states that ‘the Commission had experienced considerable inconvenience in consequence of the Clerk not returning details of the Insane persons, Lunatics and Idiots in the parish of Reeth’. The Commission The Museum’s medical complained that the Clerk systematically ‘ignores the duties of his office and they question the corner with Dr Spiers’ bag & fitness to continue in this position’. Reeth Union was ‘the only one in the Kingdom that delayed completion of their work’. collection of gruesome implements! For us, the appointment of medical officers to the Union in 1842 opens up a lot of written information about the state of health in the district. We know that John Richard McCollah aged 33, was appointed by the Union as medical officer of Reeth and district. He was paid £15 a year and 1s per head for vaccination against the smallpox. The district of Reeth had a population of 5,000 and covered 32,500 acres. He held this position jointly with Dr Corsan aged 55 years, from Reeth who had previously been a surgeon in the Royal Navy. A third Medical Officer, for the area was William Rudd aged 31. The Poor Law Commissioners pointed out that their salaries appeared very low, and they wished the Guardians to reconsider them.

Dr Corsan performed the amputation of John Gill’s leg, without anaesthetic, the poor patient gripping a pillow between his teeth. He had suffered an accident in the mines, where a horse and cart had fallen on him. It is said he rode home in spite of his injuries.

Joseph Foster Armstrong was appointed to replace Dr McCollah. However it was discovered that he was not properly qualified and he was replaced by Dr Kernot. Dr McCollah had taken on the work of Dr Corsan when he died and at sometime Robert Luther Bailey became a Medical Officer. These three remained for many years, in the case of Dr Corsan, until his death in 1847 and Dr McCollah until he died in 1865. Dr Kernot kept diaries which are kept at County Record Office. Unfortunately, although he mentioned all his medical ‘visits’, he rarely mentions the disease his patients suffered from. As in the parish registers, it is the more dramatic calls which give us any details. His entries are minimal, he writes the day of the week in Latin, and gives acronyms occasionally for medicines and what I presume was an illness. So we find that on 14th Solis [Sunday] in 1846 he ‘strapped an ankle of a Harker child’. He also visited a child of Peacock’s who had ‘Pulm’ which one assumes was a lung infection. But what does ‘Pie’ and ‘Mist’ refer to? It seemed that it was followed by nose bleeds and cramp. Extracted by Helen Bainbridge from a draft by Jocelyn Campbell

M ay Sinclair pops up everywhere - and so does Dr Spiers! We are delighted to pass on the announcement from the May Sinclair Society, of the The May Sinclair editions project which will publish her prose in themed tranches: ‘Philosophy and Mysticism’, ‘Psychology and Genius’, ‘Women, War and Feminism’, ‘Social Satire’ and ‘Social Realism’. The volumes in each tranche will be delivered and published together, and non-fiction and fiction will appear side by side so that the dialogues between each can be explored. Every Sinclair novel engages with philosophy, psychology and social politics: her characters read Kant, Spinoza, Darwin and Freud, are suffragettes and pacifists, and their lives are informed by their engagement with contemporary intellectual discourses. Sinclair’s status as public intellectual means that a traditional approach to editing her works is not appropriate: she does not fit neatly into disciplinary categories. This publication project will as a result be ideas-led, and will position Sinclair as philosopher, psychologist, and cultural historian as well as novelist. The non-fiction is incorporated into the first three tranches, and the two subsequent tranches will refer back to them and continue to engage with the interdisciplinary dialogue set up in the very first stage of publication.

The first tranche, ‘Philosophy and Mysticism’, will publish Sinclair’s philosophical works alongside the most philosophical of her fictional works, including Mary Olivier: A Life (1919) which is set in Reeth. It was Sinclair’s first attempt at a ‘stream of consciousness’ novel. It charts the life of Mary, an intelligent and independent child whose childhood and adolescence is overseen by a mother who loves her less than her brothers and who deplores her reading and intellectual adventures. It is an autobiographical book of philosophical enquiry, learning Greek, writing poetry, and love affairs. The second tranche ‘Psychology and Genius’ includes the novel The Three Sisters (1914) set in and Reeth. The three sisters of the title are fictionalised versions of the Brontë sisters, but unlike the Brontë sisters, these three are not3 writers. They live in an oppressive parsonage with their bully of a father, and the introduction of a young doctor (based on Dr Spiers) provides a romantic focus for all three. The novel explores sexual repression, anxiety, and hysteria and presents a kind of Jungian sublimation as a solution to these. For more information see:https://maysinclairsociety.com The Aldersons of Stone House

Last year, long time Friend of the Museum Alan Gibson sent us his research into the Alderson family from upper Swaledale – all sparked off by a passing reference on a poster in the Museum collection. For reasons of space the extracts below have been cut down considerably but if anyone would like to read the full document which includes many more details on Alderson family history, farming in the upper dale, and the Cat Hole Inn and its proprietors, there’s a copy in the archives or we can email it to you.

Having last spring assisted with one or two items in the exhibition of posters at the Swaledale Museum, I asked Helen if there were any exhibits that had some Alderson reference. The result was that I was sent a scan of this poster. Richard Scott of the Alderson Family History Society calculated that the poster was for the Annual Christmas Concert at Methodist Church in 1955. Some background to this was found in The story of the Methodist Church Low Row in Swaledale (1993) by Margaret Batty: ‘There had long been a desire for a pipe organ, though some had misgivings about it...Nevertheless, the choir led by John Sarginson the choirmaster worked hard for it, and by means of exceedingly popular Christmas Day concerts (which continued till 1965) contributed considerable sums towards it. In 1927 a pipe organ was installed.’

Attempting to identify the chairman of the concert took a little longer until it was discovered that the original poster had been altered by hand from ‘Mr G’ to ‘Mr J’ Alderson. A search of the Methodist records held by NYCRO identified him as James (Jim) Alderson, a name which Alan knew from his own family research….

...I also recognized his name from one line of my own Alderson ancestors; the grandparents of James Alderson, John Alderson and Mary (née Fawcett), were also the parents of my great great grandfather, Thomas Alderson. John Alderson lived at Thorns and was a farmer and landed proprietor of 144 acres...At his marriage in 1871 to Margaret Rukin, Thomas was described as a farmer of Hope House, Birkdale. Sometime after their marriage, Thomas and Margaret moved from Birkdale to Cotherstone, where their first three children were born. In 1873 his older brother, John married Amelia Alderson from Thwaite and sometime before 1881 they had moved to Stone House in Birkdale...Eventually John and Amelia had eight children, all born at Stone House between 1873 and 1910. James, one of their sons, subsequently raised his own family there.

Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby also give a very detailed description of life at Stone House in A Dales Heritage (1982, 1996). ‘Almost to being left in 1964, life at Stone House was carried on the traditional manner. James Alderson and his wife, Margaret, brought up three sons and four daughters there. It was the largest farm in Birkdale. They kept three horses, three to five cows, about 500 sheep and five or more sheep dogs.’

‘In a mile and a quarter (from Crook Seat) we reach the junction of becks which meet to become the Swale. Far below the road (B 6270) and in a sheltered place near the river is Stone House, and almost within sight are three other farmhouses – Ellers, Birkdale and Firs – and on the spit of land formed by the becks' meeting the ruined buildings of Lane (Loanin) End leadmine, once reached by a stone bridge, now gone, across Birkdale Beck.’ ‘...Within a radius of a mile and a half which includes Raven Seat are now four occupied farmhouses, whereas formerly there were at least twenty houses…’

The Alderson family at Stone House, Self-sufficiency was the theme – rushes and bracken cut for bedding, large amounts of peat with far right. harvested on Ash Gill and carried in peat coups across the river to be stacked in the peat house. University of Art Collection © Some coal was fetched from Tan Hill and a little from Kirkby Stephen station. Cheese and butter Marie Hartley Estate. were home-made, and two fat pigs annually provided pork, ham and bacon. A rare bacon flake, on which these were dried, hung from the rafters of the kitchen. Havercake was formerly baked on a bakestone and hardened off on a cake stool with oak legs.

The kitchen floor was sanded with broken-down lumps of soft millstone grit fetched from Lops Wath, and sharp sand for sharpening scythes was collected on the shores of Birkdale Tarn. Quilts with interleaved padding were made for bed-clothes – each daughter had to have one for when she was 21 – and ‘stobbed’ rugs were homemade for the hearth. Garden flowers were cherished in a narrow bed fenced off by a wall in front of the house...In the parlour an alcove once contained a cupboard bed. Here, a handsome organ provided an accompaniment for hymns.

In a home so far from a road, provision for winter was of prime concern. Goods were delivered by horses and carts to the main road, whence they were fetched. In the late autumn an additional 10st bag of flour was bought, a stone of sugar, a 14lb tin of treacle, boxes of long bars of soap, a barrel of apples, a bag of turnips, five or six 8st bags of potatoes stored in barrels and a 28lb bucket of lard. Sometimes a box of kippers – eaten for tea or supper- was bought at Kirkby Stephen.

While continuing to farm the land, in the 1960s the next generation of Aldersons moved The remote Stone House Farm into a property at Keld since when Stone House has been used as a holiday cottage. From an article by Alan Gibson

4 The Arkengarthdale Sword Dance Although sword dancing of one sort or another has been recorded all over Europe since the middle ages, the type found in Yorkshire is almost unique to the county. Known as longsword dances, they usually involved a calling on song, in which each dancer in turn was introduced to the spectators, followed by a dance in which each dancer held the hilt of his own sword and the tip of his neighbour’s so that all the dancers were linked together. In this formation, they performed various intricate patterns culminating in a ‘lock’ in which all the swords were intertwined in a manner that enabled the locked swords to be held up high by the lead dancer holding the hilt of just one sword. This ‘lock’ was then placed over the head of the fool and the dancers all withdrew their swords simultaneously as the fool fell to the floor in a mock execution or sacrifice. In some cases, the performance ended there, but in others this led into a mummers’ play. Bellerby Sword Dancers in 1926 (from Ivor Allsop, The swords were about three feet in length and made of metal with a wooden handle Longsword Dances from Traditional and and no hilt. Of course, the edges and tips of the blades were blunt to prevent accidents. Manuscript Sources ‘courtesy of Pat Pickles.’

Of the 87 different longsword dances recorded in Britain, all were found in Yorkshire villages apart from four just over the border in Durham, one in north Lincolnshire, one in north Derbyshire and two further away in the Isle of Man and the Shetland Isles. The nearest sword dances to Swaledale that survived long enough to be recorded in sufficient detail to be danced today were at Bellerby and Hunton, although dances were also known to have been performed in Arkengarthdale, at Richmond and in the area. On New Year’s Eve, 1869, Rev John Tinkler, the vicar of St. Mary’s Church in Arkengarthdale was passing a quiet evening with his family when he was visited by a team of sword dancers. He noted down what he saw, but did nothing with his notes for several decades. In 1912, whilst vicar of Caunton in Nottinghamshire, Rev Tinkler wrote a letter to a Mr Hodgkinson describing the Arkengarthdale Sword Dance, and Mr Hodgkinson forwarded it to the folk music collector, Cecil Sharp.

It read: “Dear Mr Hodgkinson, I fear you will have thought me lazy in redeeming my promise…When I was vicar of Arkengarth-Dale near Richmond in N.W. Yorkshire I was with my wife and children quietly passing the New Year’s Eve of 1869. The quiet was broken by the maid coming to tell me that some young men at the back door wished me to see them. I had hardly entered the kitchen when a clown, dressed in robe or cloak of dark crimson tatters, with a hood on his head of the same colour and having an appendage like a fox’s tail, came in with a large broom, moving round as he swept, and singing in a monotone: ‘Room, room, brave gallants, room. Here we resort to show some sport and pastime, gentlemen and ladies, in the Xmas time.’ As soon as this introductory recitation was ended and the clown went on one side, there came in one by one 5 dancers, in morris costume, each with a long sword, and each in order singing a verse and dancing the while until a circle was formed, the dancing going on Claro Sword Dancers re-enacting the without intermission. Then ensued a remarkable performance of skilful and graceful dancing in Bellerby sword dance in Bellerby in the and out of their interlaced swords forming figures of pentagon, etc. This was at length broken 1990s (courtesy of Claro Sword Dancers) by the clown, who had been mocking their movements, rushing into the ring, where the dancers encircled his neck with interlaced swords, and he fell down as one dead. To recover him a doctor was called for and one from his own description renowned in his profession made his appearance. The remainder of the performance was that of the Christmas Mummers’ play ending with the usual box being taken round for pecuniary offerings. I learned afterwards that these young men had been taught and trained by Christopher Reine, an old lead-miner and the only surviving member of the old sword-dancers, during many previous months; and well their secret was kept, until their visit came as a great surprise. One Henry Chalder acted as Clown and was indeed the leading spirit of the revival. I asked Christopher Reine to come and spend an evening with me, and so was able to take down from his violin-play the melody of the verses sung and of the traditional dance tune as played on this occasion. I knew it as the familiar melody of ‘Nancy Dawson’ so popular in the reign of Geo. II and still sung in children’s games as ‘The Mulberry Bush’. On asking Christopher why the dancers didn’t move to ‘The Auld Wife of Coverdill’ the reply was that they did not care for it, preferring the more lively Nancy Dawson. Wishing to have the trad. tune I further asked him whether he remembered it and could play it. He said ‘Yes I can’ and at once began to play it. So I rescued the tune from being lost at his death. (This took place some years since.)”

Unfortunately, this is the only information that has survived about the Arkengarthdale Sword Dance and it is insufficient to recreate the dance. However, the words and tune of the Calling On Song and the tunes called Nancy Dawson and The Auld Wife of Coverdill have survived because they were noted down by Rev. Tinkler and appended to his letter to Mr Hodgkinson.

Further research established that Christopher Raine (as his name was spelt in other documents) was a ‘Lead Ore Dresser’ who was born in Arkengarthdale in 1823 and died in 1897. He lived at Arkle Town until at least 1861, but had moved to nearby Low Level by 1871. The fact that, at the age of only 46, he was described by Rev. Tinkler in 1869 as ‘an old lead miner and the only surviving member of the old sword dancers’ emphasises the short life expectancy of 19th century lead miners and smelters. Raine’s A longsword knot. The longer life may be explained by the fact that he was the son of a mason and flag dealer, not a miner, and A’dale knot may have been followed his father’s trade until at least 1851, Furthermore, he returned to his father’s trade sometime after different because, according 1881. Henry Chalder, who took the role of the fool in the sword dance was a lead miner living in Arkle to Rev Tinkler, there were five dancers rather than the Town, who would have been 15 years old in 1869. usual six. Either the A’dale Bob Ellis dance was unique in this respect or Rev Tinkler 5 miscounted the dancers! Friends’ Programme of Talks 2017 I n August 1737 a catastrophic fire swept through part of the village All to be held in the Museum at 7.30pm of Marrick destroying houses and farm buildings but leaving remarkably little documentary or physical evidence for its passing. In Please note that other events may be added during the course of the season a letter in 1999 local architectural historian Jane Hatcher commented quite rightly that there was ‘no hint of consistent Georgianisation’ in Wednesday 17th May the village’ such as might be expected after such a major rebuilding. Friends of the Swaledale Museum AGM at 6.30 pm followed

by a Fine Art Auction However, lurking amongst the Quarter Sessions papers in Northallerton, is a sheaf of papers which puts flesh on the bones of Wednesday 31st May what might otherwise have been just a vague folk memory, so Jane Giscombe and Alan Argent commonplace that it doesn’t even seem to have merited a report in the 'Non Conformist Chapels in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale newspapers of the day. The people of Marrick appealed to the Quarter from the Christopher Stell Archive at Dr Williams's Library' Sessions for approval for a brief to raise money for compensation Wednesday 7th June through special collections after Sunday services nationwide. In order Keith Sweetmore, to make their case the inhabitants set out detailed lists of what exactly Engagement Officer North, The National Archives they had lost in the fire, ranging from an eye watering £75 1s 10d ‘The Train That Never Came - attempts to bring the railway to worth of goods in the case of Widow Orton down to her poor maid Swaledale’ who lost 15s worth of clothing – an old coat and petticoat, a new apron, two pairs of muffs, three mob caps, one pair of stays and a Wednesday 21st June riding hood. Richard Lamb, ‘The Anatomy of Yorkshire Lead Smelting Mills including The result is a series of astonishing documents listing everything from the special case of Mill’ (plus walk/tour of Marrick frying pans and wooden trenchers to sides of beef and ‘sundry things High and Low Smelting Mills, 22nd July, pre-booking lost in the milkhouse’. Widow Orton obviously had both a very large essential) house and a photographic memory – her list runs to four pages, plus an extra page and a half of items which she thought about later! Wednesday 12th July Ruth Rising, North Yorkshire County Record Office, Another widow, Barbary Moor, made a much more modest claim for ‘Grounds for Appeal: the secret stories of First World War £18 13s 9d, plus another £18 0s 2d for rebuilding. Her possessions conscription - the military appeal tribunals relating to ranged from over £4 worth of clothes, linen and shoes, down to 2s for Swaledale and Arkengarthdale’ trenchers but she also lost £5 in cash. In Barbary’s case we are actually in touch with one of her descendants and have been able to Wednesday 16th August find out quite a bit about her family. By coincidence the same Tim Laurie - ‘The Ancient Woodlands of Swaledale’ correspondent is also descended from Bartholomew Blenkiron who Wednesday 6th September claimed £6 6s and 10d to rebuild his house but was presumably renting Richard Hunt ‘Doors, Windows and War’ - Being A New it out as he didn’t lose any personal property. Scheme for the Dating of Lesser Vernacular Buildings in the In addition to the inventories of household goods we have another list Upper Swaledale Area, along with a Brief Digression on the of claims for rebuilding property. In total there are 32 separate names Evidence for Unpleasantness in the Dale from Before the of claimants although some of them were almost certainly living under Romans to the Present Day. the same roof, such as Widow Orton and her maid. Of these only 10 COST: £3 for Friends and £4 for Visitors. claimed for both rebuilding and contents, 14 just for contents and 8 More information: 01748 884118 only for building. A brief look at the local registers shows that the [email protected] majority of the latter were probably not actually living in the village at Please watch the local press & posters for occasional the time of the fire but presumably owned the houses which were lived alterations to time/date &, if coming from a distance, please in by those who only claimed for household goods. This whittles the check with the Museum before setting off. number of properties affected down to around 18 which would Advance booking recommended . certainly be a large enough proportion of the village to make an impact which would be remembered for years to come. th found this entry in their archives: “17 May 1741. Collected Work is ongoing on transcribing the inventories and piecing together then for the sufferers by fire at the town of Marrick in the the stories of the claimants but we would love to hear from anyone county of Yorkshire, the sum of one shilling and sixpence”. who has a family story about the fire or recognises a name in this list: We can only wonder how many similar records are squirreled Ann Atkinson, William Blenkiron, Bartholomew Blenkiron, Jane away in church records all over the country! Bowes, Jane Buckton, John Copperthwaite, Joseph Fawcett, George Tracy Little Fawcett, Thomas Hawkin, George Hawkins, John Hawkins, Thomas Hawkins, Ralph Hillery, Thomas Hills, John If you have any memories or reminiscences of Swaledale & Hops, Dorothy Hudson, John Hudson, Christopher Kay, Thomas Arkengarthdale, or anything else relevant to local history Lamm, Mary Loftus, Ann Loftus, Barbary Moor, William Musgrave, which would be of interest for the Newsletter, the Samuel Needham, Bella Orton, John Petty, William Petty, JohnTerry, Committee would love to hear from you. We can’t Elizabeth Waggett and Thomas Walker. promise to use everything in full, but all contributions, One final piece in the jigsaw is the proof that the inhabitants of however small, will be very welcome! Please contact Marrick got permission for the special collection and that it actually Helen on 07969 823232 or email: happened, even though it took a while. In 1988 the church wardens of [email protected] St Peter’s, Wentworth, a tiny parish in the shadow of Ely cathedral,

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